La Palma’s spectacular Cumbre Vieja volcano has attracted international attention. Now we can see what it looks like from space and from satellites orbiting the Earth.
Go ahead that the volcano of La Palma it is, above all, a tragedy for the people to whom the more than 300 houses and properties razed belong.
But at the same time, it is a spectacle of nature that attracts curious and scientists alike.
The astronaut Thomas Pesquet Has published this spectacular photo that he has taken since one of the windows of the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth at about 420 kilometers high:
Everything indicates that you have used the zoom, because the image is quite close.
It can be seen the explosion of lava from one of the volcano’s cones, as well as the arm of land, on the left, dimly lit by the lava threads that have been descending the slopes.
It is an image as terrible as it is beautiful. Nature’s uncontrollable destructiveness.
The company Maxar Technologies too has pointed its satellites towards the island of La Palma. This is one of the photographs taken by one of them:
They are images taken at night to favor the contrast between the bright red of magma, and the darkness. But we would also have liked to have seen a photo in broad daylight.
We have been erupting for 5 days, and everything indicates that there are still many more to go. The rash could even flare up.
According to account LifeScience, scientists are now trying to predict whether the gases from the volcano will have effects on other countries.
The computer simulation of the European Union Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) indicates that the sulfur dioxide cloud it will first reach the northwestern coast of Morocco and Algeria.
But it will also cover much of Spain and even central France, this weekend.
Even so, experts estimate that it will hardly have an impact on the population, since this toxic cloud passes at a very high altitude, of more than 5 kilometers, and it is difficult for it to react with the particles of the atmosphere to form acid rain.
In the case of the ashes, which could interfere with air traffic, are currently rare outside the vicinity of the eruption.
But volcanoes are unpredictable, and the Cumbre Vieja has yet to say its last word …